#killer citrus

[citrusella-flugpucker]

((@choko-pockystix Citrusella’s mood music XD

Odd Todd (the guy with the pies/purple nose) and Pienado as Choko Ms. O (the “solve. this. problem.” lady) as Dr. Cinnamon Olive (ponytail girl who can’t do mental math) as Citrusella Oscar (the “I’ll cover you” guy) as ???? Cleaning people as Servants Choko Caged? XD

Sourced from an unlisted YouTube video from a list that can be found on Tumblr that I’m paranoid about giving the link to because I’m afraid of causing it to be deleted because copyright. XP))

[citrusella-flugpucker]

Post 50000

((Well, okay, surrogate post 50000. More like post 50250. XD

As a note, there are still allowances for "old" her (for instance, if beta her is activated or AU'd again, as well as some already extant AUs). But this signifies a new "era" for Citrus, hopefully. May it be a prosperous one! :D

BTW, see if you can figure out what I'm talking about when I bring up a "time since x" bit. XD))

Citrusella had spent much of the last 2-3 weeks moping.

But one day, she just felt as if she... didn't need to.

One day, she had woken up, expecting to feel the crushing weight of loss and betrayal keeping her largely without purpose in the world. But that feeling just wasn't there. It was replaced with a small, fledgling feeling of acceptance.

And she got up. And she went about her day. And the world wasn't a dark, foreboding place. And it was okay.

And she went to the stables. And she mucked out stalls. And she did something she hadn't done in a long time: she climbed on the back of a fire-breathing unicandycorn and took off into the landscape, stopping at the top of a cliff to take in the game's world.

It had been two years, nine months, seven days, and 49 minutes since she'd taken on the role of sharpshooter, since she'd first put the gun she'd found in a rundown, dummied-out gun shack (which had since been reinstated into the game) to use. So much had changed since then. She'd learned and grew and found her place and lots of new friends she hadn't had before the reset. She'd grown comfortable talking to others more often. She'd lost so many things and people since then (sometimes at her own hands), but she'd gained just as many if not more.

Maybe someday she would return to the range, re-hone her skills, become comfortable with her gun in her hands once more. Maybe she'd reclaim the role of sharpest shooter in the land--with pride this time and not a hint of a desire to hurt anyone.

But it didn't have to be now. And it didn't even have to be soon. And that was okay.

She turned Skittles around and galloped away from the cliff.

It was as if she was starting anew, and she intended to take full advantage of all life had to offer.

[citrusella-flugpucker]

In Which Citrusella Has Not Moved or Gotten Up, Despite Being Allowed To

((Because I meant to write this a few days ago. ...It's actually set a few days back to make up for that fact oops.))

Citrusella had been out of her loop and back with the living for over a day.

And she was still mopey. She did nothing but lay in the bed, refusing to even eat before getting a look as if something terrible were crossing her mind at which point she quickly ate just enough that she was sure no one would question her about it.

And some of the time, Sara sat near her. She was sitting near her now, browsing her computer and looking at the mopey eight-year-old, when she said something.

"...Tu ets més burro que una garba de canyots." ((x, please tell me if you know the language and I used it wrong DX))

"...English, Sara?" Citrusella's voice sounded somewhere between sad, confused, and annoyed.

Sara sighed. "I was trying to get away with calling you stupider than a bundle of sticks... but I really just meant you're immensely stubborn and should stop being a whiny baby."

Citrusella crossed her arms. "Am not. You'd be in the same boat as me right now if it were you. You didn't have people just... do stuff behind your back and when you couldn't say anything about it."

"Didn't I? The whole castle flashed blue when Dr. Mario did his thing because Surge showed up and shut it down, and no one knew what was happening except the doctors. Then people kept talking over my head for a few days before I got a straight answer. And THEN, I had to think like you, figure out what YOU would be okay with that the doctors were willing to do. And you just... can't even be a little bit happy? I understand being shocked and upset at Dr. Mario--what he did wasn't okay at all--but I don't think it's fair to be this upset with me and Dr. Cinnamon when we were just trying to help you."

"Sara, you don't understand... it's like... part of me is missing. Dr. Cinnamon let me touch my gun again--she said she was testing something--and it didn't even feel right in my hands anymore. You can't know that feeling."

"Okay... I might not know that exact feeling... but I do know what it's like to have a part of me be gone."

"You do not!"

"Ella, do you remember how I came into existence? Choko had to fill in half my data points. Heck, most of my data points!" She grew more serious and sentimental, her voice dropping in volume. "I understand that you might feel upset about what happened, but I think it's stupid to just sit here and not even try to move past this and grow. It happened, and it's over, and there's no going back--even though you technically could, it'd never be allowed because they're considering this a success. You need to suck it up and move on, buttercup."

Citrusella looked at Sara for a long moment before mumbling a "You don't understand..." and rolling back over and moping again. Sara rolled her eyes and got back on her laptop. Both girls mulled over the immaturity and insensitivity of the other.

Sigh.

[citrusella-flugpucker]

It's All Just Process

It was just after closing and they were in the code room. Dr. Cinnamon, the night doctor, and the backup doctor swam through the code to open up the relevant boxes (Dr. Medicine, unwelcome and uncomfortable in the code room, was with nurses back in the ward, poised to remove the precautions around Citrusella that had been there to keep her stable). Sara, having gotten a full, clear explanation from Dr. Cinnamon, had decided she didn't want to be present for the procedure anymore and opted to wait back in the ward for it to be complete.

The backup doctor and Dr. Cinnamon went to Citrusella's code whilst the night doctor went to the global file they had the permission to edit. Dr. Cinnamon would need to drift between them--while the night doctor knew what he was doing more than well enough to do so on his own (the backup doctor did not, not yet), she would, as the expert coder, be saddled with the responsibility of being sure that all the code changes that were pushed through were valid and sure to work, especially since they were editing a global file, one all the racers used. One wrong move and their whole game could end up wrong if that code happened to run while it was going down.

"We'll need to edit Citrusella's code first... but not before we take a backup." Buttons were pressed by the backup doctor, copies were taken, and there was now a backup.

She cracked her knuckles and opened Citrusella's private process for the code they were removing, just to be sure there was nothing too much of note there, nothing that it might be imperative to move into another process since they were routing around this one. "Wha..?"

She waved the night doctor over to the racer's box and pointed out some things and the three discussed in hushed tones, even though no one could hear them in the confines of the room. After some nods, the night doctor swam back to the global and Dr. Cinnamon closed the process. She deftly worked with the damaged ends Mario had cut, taking the lines he'd removed, which were floating freely and without connection, and containing them within a lockbox before shutting down Citrusella's code for editing safety. She attached the orphaned line ends so that they would actually form a working set of instructions, looked over her work to make sure it was the outcome agreed upon by the group. Satisfied, she closed the box and moved over to the global to work with the night doctor, leaving the backup doctor with Citrusella's box to do the last step.

Replacing the global was incredibly easy; they simply replaced all its instructions with a single one to check that zero equaled zero which, no matter the answer, would go through with a "true" command.

One of the racers who was not Citrusella had opted for an additional treatment, similar to Citrusella's rerouting, because the contents of her private process had terrified her just that much. That was done and she was respawned. The other remaining racer had her code checked just to be sure it was all functioning according to plan--it was.

Dr. Cinnamon nodded at the backup doctor, who completed the last step--restarting Citrusella--as Dr. Cinnamon notified the ward that this was occurring.

Supports were removed, and the young girl woke up good as new and all was right in the world again.

Wasn't it?

[citrusella-flugpucker]

Physical Labor, a drabble

Physicals were... grueling.

Examine. Check. Change gloves. Repeat.

Examine. Check. Change exam table paper. Repeat.

Examine. Check. Reset entire section of room. Repeat. (Oh, why did one of the unlockables have to be a nervous vomiter?)

Examine. Check.

OH. Hmm...

Extra consent form. Repeat.

And so on, and so on.

In the end, it turned out that only two other than Citrusella had the problematic code piece. (And all the racers but one--not counting Citrusella, of course, who would receive a "real" physical after she'd convalesced--were cleared to race in regards to the standard physical.)

Would have been three, but a certain red racer (who was presently sitting with a certain older blue one near Citrusella) had apparently not had that bit of code restored when the Codebusters had rebuilt her a year prior. Man, those kids were sly...

Neither of the two other racers had refused any edit to clear the code, and Sara had signed all relevant papers as Citrusella's medical power of attorney, granting them the ability to do anything required to get Citrusella back to working order, like she was before--on one condition: she got to watch, and be told what was happening, when it went down. No more people yelling over her head about things she didn't understand.

The doctors briefly met to discuss the game plan.

The edits were scheduled for tomorrow.

Fun times.

But for now, everyone but the night doctor went to their quarters for at least a few hours of well-earned rest.

[citrusella-flugpucker]

The Conference Room

((Because ETHICS.))

Dr. Cinnamon sat at a long conference table, drops of icing beading on her forehead from all the discussion and running around to make sure patients were fine and that the error handler was within its limits.

The perils of being head doctor.

This was the fourth meeting just today--and only the second being held directly in the conference room (mostly for confidentiality reasons because Rancis hadn't died after a particularly gruesome crash and they wanted to keep him for observation for a few hours after they'd respawned him)--and the previous meetings, as well as all the ones they'd had on previous days, had turned into a yell fest. Between the last meeting and checking Rancis's vital signs, the doctors who were yelling--including Dr. Cinnamon, herself--had been ordered to take a break and return to everything with fresh eyes and minds.

So wasn't it just great when Dr. Medicine came in and slammed his briefcase on the table. She really wished she thought less Yzma- or Scar-like, but she just couldn't help it--she was surrounded by idiots.

The night doctor and the backup doctor poured into the room a few minutes later and the door was shut quietly behind them.

"So... doctors, how shall we... discuss this?" Dr. Cinnamon began.

"Well, I don't see why we can't just pick the quickest option to get her up and running," Dr. Medicine said.

The doctor bit her tongue--no, they couldn't do that and the guy knew nothing about code but they couldn't just berate each other this time.

"We can't go that route because we'd be ignoring the potential pitfalls to the quickest method."

The night doctor looked deep in thought while the backup doctor presented her reasoning for her pet cause of rolling back the change--her reasoning being that they could consider Citrusella's wishes... a noble cause but not something they were dealing with as an isolated issue. Medicine brought up them needing to avoid a... fiasco--they didn't need a killer Citrusella again, and did the backup doctor remember 2 and a half years ago when the game was evacuated and put out of order due to someone else having similar issues?

There were too many variables; great gobstoppers, sometimes Dr. Cinnamon hated medicine.

"Hmm," the night doctor spoke up, "why not make up a list of pros and cons for each decision?"

"That's... not a bad idea." The other doctors nodded in agreement and they all went to work on the white board on the long end of the room, writing down reasons for and against all the ideas that they had to fix the constantly-erroring Citrusella. After a bit of deliberation, they had several reasons jotted down for all of them.

Admiring their handiwork, Dr. Medicine spoke up. "I think it's clear which one we should go toward." He gestured to the one with the most pros--which was also part of the solution he wanted to push. The backup doctor vehemently disagreed with him, citing that the pro that pushed it over the line was written by Dr. Medicine and also fairly contrived. She grabbed a marker and matter of factly noted a relevant con that hadn't been jotted down.

"...They're all pretty evenly matched," the night doctor said. "How could we ever choose just one?"

Dr. Cinnamon stopped scratching her chin and wiping beaded icing off her head before pointing. "That one."

"That?" Dr. Medicine countered, "It's mostly con, where's the good?!"

"Yes, but read the pros; there may be less of them, but their quality and importance is much higher combined than the cons. Our code says to do no harm, and that choice does the least amount of it."

"That would require a mountain of finagling to be sure we didn't violate autonomy, though... how will we do it? And will we need to figure out Citrusella's?"

Dr. Cinnamon sat, considering the question for a moment, before speaking up once more. "We put out an announcement for a mandatory physical, since the racers all need one in a few weeks anyway, just say we needed to push it up. While we're there, we determine which racers will be affected, and we present the choice to them. If even one racer says no, we reconvene.

...And considering how brash we're being about this... that," she pointed to the choice of pushing through Dr. Mario's change, "will be the easiest way to bring Citrusella out, and it won't be any more problematic to her code in conjunction with the other change, either."

"As for Citrusella..." She opened the door.

"Oh! Sara! Speak of the devil! We..." Dr. Cinnamon sighed. "We need to talk."

[citrusella-flugpucker]

Would it be more ethical to remove the errors instead of putting back in the beta code? One could argue that due to the beta code putting people at risk of Citrusella doing Bad Things, it would be unethical to both Citrusella and her hypothetical victims to put back in the code.

((I think they’re trying to weigh game safety vs. consent for removal (which they can’t get from her in her present state) and effects of removal vs. effects of keeping it in that don’t affect game safety vs. what’s ethical when considering the parts of her code that are technically shared across racers*… just a lot of stuff.

(*The beta code (“The Hunt”) was established by other RPers to be existent in the code of EVERY racer, and I found a way that that could happen and yet literally never affect people who either didn’t know about the code or didn’t want it to run… that’ll be discussed lower down, but the fact that she’s not the only one with this code opens up further ethical doors of whether it’s acceptable to edit only her or not.)

Plus there are several permutations of removal so they have to argue the best thing there as well. DX

The options are:

Keep the code as it was before Mario’s edits: Mario’s edits were unapproved and could be argued to be some sort of unauthorized (and botched) hack given his non-qualification to deal in that code… and therefore it could be argued that the most clearly ethical action to do first is to reverse the edits and make it so that a condition that enables the beta/”hunt” code will not happen immediately upon respawn. Possible other routes can then be determined after that point, possibly with Citrusella’s input (and leaving her code unaltered in the net sense means that she’s in a frame of mind largely unaffected/uninfluenced by their actions and therefore allowing an unclouded formation of opinion, comparatively to some other options).

Restore her code (i.e. option A), but route the lines around it: This has the same effect as the next one, so I’m going to discuss the ethical arguments there, but the purpose of leaving it in her code means that it’s only a few clicks to reverse if need be and also allows the originally written coding to stay intact, even though the references have moved.

Remove the lines, reroute the remaining ones: Basically the same as the above choice, but more along the lines of finishing Dr. Mario’s work (and because part of the work is already done, this means it is the easiest to get done quickly since it just involves changing line numbers). Outside of whether there are any ethical arguments to seeing work through that was initiated by a doctor who broke multiple protocols, there is also the issue of whether they should obtain consent, which is impossible to do (because of her current predicament) before going for this method as a first-line decision. There is also the not-entirely-clear possibility that it could affect her psychologically (something they are willing to do if need be but would like to avoid where possible).

Clearing out the process within her code box itself that actually initiates the shooting, but restoring the startup process to normal: This involves going for the first option while also editing a different piece of her code (the place (priv:) BAD THING points to) to basically blank it out. This would retain the bit where she’s pushed over the edge to get the process to start, but would remove her ability to use her gun as a form of getting “back onto the edge” so to speak (and could affect her love for shooting as a hobby, not sure, would depend on the contents of her private BAD THING process as well as what else uses it… might also cause her to lose her feistiness when it comes to getting offended as well, for similar reasons).

(*This also relates to that “all racers” note I left up above; it’s possible the process doesn’t affect other racers (in-RP, of course XP) because some or all of the private BAD THING processes were in the process of being removed (well, blanked), either for space or bug reasons, but they weren’t all removed before the game was actually released.)

Clearing out the global BAD THING process: Involves removing (or making benign) the global process all racers using the BAD THING code call. Even if they leave in malicious private BAD THING processes, since those processes need the global to function *properly* in relation to the killing actions they were first programmed for, the danger is mediated by removing the catalyst that enables the private processes to go for killing. An unlikely choice since it has potential to affect a lot of racers and that’s a complex ethical argument right there.

There are lots of other solutions that are either obscure and unlikely or longform versions of basically doing one of the above options.

In short, removal may both be a question of consent (i.e. the most likely question is “do we need to ask first?”; possibly made more complex by her ambivalence toward removing it in the past even when in the proper frame of mind to discuss such a thing) as well as considerations of how it could potentially affect her personality and feelings (i.e. “will it make her too sweet and/or one-dimensional?” “will it fundamentally alter her interests and likes?” “will this removal make her happier in the long run?”), plus the rights of other racers (“do they have a right to consent to changes meant for her that could affect them?” “if they have the potential to kill as well**, should they be mandated to change if we don’t ask Citrusella’s consent”) and overall game safety (“how likely is this option to result in bad things again?” “what are the rights of the people she potentially hurts versus her own rights when considering her code and changes to it?” “how likely are bad things to get us unplugged? what about Citrusella’s style of bad thing specifically?” (It’s easy to have the process result in an unplugging, but Citrusella’s typical style is so haphazard that she’s typically easy to apprehend and therefore less of an unplug risk.) “could anything done affect the code (hers or the game’s) in detrimental ways that might not directly result in an unplugging?”).

(**There is at least one other racer who has had issues with killing, though I don’t know if he wrote/retconned it out…)

And then as time wears on, there could be an added ethical argument of keeping her code running if they don’t come to a decision. Every time her code comes out of the psuedo-shutdown it’s in and cycles through errors in quick sucession, it could potentially overwhelm the game’s error handler when added to other minor and not-minor errors the game experiences on a regular basis, potentially resulting in reduced performance, lag, even more serious things like game-breaking or minor crashes or something (though those are unlikely without an influx of more serious bugs from somewhere that’s not Citrusella)…

TL;DR: ETHICS! WHO IS IT UP TO? WHAT WILL HAPPEN? DO I ALREADY HAVE A PLAN???? SHOULD I DISCUSS THIS WITH OTHER PEOPLE??? ETHICS.))

[citrusella-flugpucker]

I am such a bad owner XD

((Here is Citrusella's startup process, the first thing that runs in her code and the thing that makes everything else go smoothly.

Or at least what it looked like before. (This was supposed to be a mockup (based off how Sims 1 code is notated in Iff Pencil) but then I nerded out on Excel and it's a bit closer to looking as if it were real code. Also, if you are able to follow how this "code" works, please ignore my oversights that have potential to break in a real environment, because I see some of them too (STUPID ACCIDENTAL INFINITE LOOP). (Also, some of those semis are supposed to be privs GAH.)

If you need this explained out of interest (or image described because you can't see it), I can do that... just not here after what happened last time. I'll do it in a reblog. If it's requested.)

The important thing is 4-7--that's what dictates whether to run the scary code (4: check the number that exists in a storage slot) and then how to run it (5 and 6), ending with making it so that the scary code can't immediately be run again (7). (Also, I figured out why this scary code can affect some characters more than others, so please hit me with a tomato if you want to know that idea.)

So what did Dr. Mario do?

HE JUST CUT THEM OUT. (There would typically be a failsafe on this in a well-programmed application for humans to edit code in (Iff Pencil, for instance, doesn't let you remove a line that another line points to (that is, if line 2 goes to line 3 (in either a success condition or a failure one, it doesn't matter), it won't let you remove line 3 until you've pointed 2 (and any other lines going to 3) elsewhere). But considering Sugar Rush let someone PULL OUT ALL THE WIRES TO ITS STINKING RULER, we're just going to assume it doesn't have that. :P)

Granted, the fact that those next conditions are all errors now (though realistically those are also cut out, whoops) would have resulted in the same condition--something the game sees as an unrecoverable error, forcing its error response (in this case, resetting the object with the error unless it hits the same error a number of times in a row, in which case, it stops going through the erroring process for a time). But basically what's happening is that when her startup process tries to go to line 4, it can't find it and it's like THIS IS HORRIBLE and it just, like, breaks down. And that keeps happening until the error handler is like, "okay, I've had enough". She went straight into the reset thing right when he cut it out because she was actively processing those lines at the time.

To Mario's credit, he actually knows how to fix this (and might have done so had Surge not pulled him out); it was less a "not understanding the code at hand" mistake he made and more a "tired and trying to move fast and made the oversight of forgetting to reroute around the lines he was removing" (which is a rookie mistake and would get even a qualified "surgeon" in trouble). BUT since those lines deal in neurocode, he still couldn't have known the effects of cutting them out so he's still in big trouble. (And even further, he was probably making a wild guess at which lines were the ones doing this, based on something he could have (at best) heard from another doctor (or worse, Citrusella herself).)

Now the staff qualified to deal in that code are debating the effects of putting it back versus the effects of removing it and which choice is more ethical. It's not like they don't know how to do either option (it's pretty easy to do either, honestly), they just can't choose and their operating procedure says to not do anything when it can't be decided if a choice is ethical unless the game or character is in danger. So Citrusella gets to lay around, going through her reset loop every so often until the error handler stops it again, until the doctors decide.

TL;DR: Dr. Mario is scum and Citrusella had to pay. And now people are arguing ethics. And Sara is acting like a burnt piece of crepe.

And I suck at coding.))